


Run, rabbit run

by videodrome



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Animal Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:07:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27640448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/videodrome/pseuds/videodrome
Summary: Huntress x Nurse being cute nonverbal ace sapphics.Dark angsty h/c domestic fluff.Plot summary:Anna sees smol anxious gay, picks her up; 'This is mine now.'Mentions of other characters, but focused mostly on Huntress.CW: animal death for a wild rabbit, canon-typical violence, and dark themes.
Relationships: Anna | The Huntress/Sally Smithson | The Nurse
Comments: 2
Kudos: 58





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I took some artistic liberties with how the trials work, and wrote this before any of recent updates, but only just finished it.  
> I also mis-remembered the Nurse as being French-Canadian but decided to just roll with it.

A horrible, desperate, high-pitched scream echoed through the fields. The humans were gone, now. Undeserving of the mantle of 'survivor' today.  
Sally drifted toward the sound, curious.  
A rabbit had set off one of Evan's traps. The teeth had obliterated the underside of its small furry body, activating the trigger mechanism as it had jumped off the priming plate.

She stared down at the rabbit with indifference. Anna, drawn to the same sound, arrived at the scene a moment later. She strode purposefully toward the trap, so Sally drifted back to give her space, loitering in the doorway of the dilapidated shack surrounding them.

Sally watched as Anna reset the trap with as much ease as she’d seen Evan do the same.

Once, when no one was looking, Sally had tried to pull the jaws of a sprung trap apart. She couldn't do it.

'немой?' The huntress looked at the nurse, tilting her head to one side questioningly. The rabbit had stopped its terrible screaming now, bleeding out and convulsing in shock.

The nurse shook her head slowly, uncertain.

Anna picked up the rabbit by its back legs in one hand, holding its head in the other. She then made a sudden whip-fast motion that separated its neck bones and spinal cord with an audible pop.

Anna held up the dead rabbit by the ears. She lightly touched its throat, then reached out to gently tap Sally’s neck.  
Anna gave her another questioning held tilt.  
Sally swallowed hard. Nodded slowly.  
Anna nodded back firmly, decisively.

She turned the rabbit over in her hands and tutted disapprovingly. The teeth of the trap hadn't nicked the rabbit's intestines, spoiling the meat, but its abdominal wall was shredded. She scooped out its innards and tossed them to a nearby crow which cackled gleefully at the bounty.  
She clipped the rabbit by its ankles to her belt and skipped away.

-

The killers milled around by the exit gate, waiting for The Entity to clear the way to their respective realms.

Herman was by far the most talkative of the bunch, nattering away at anyone who would listen-usually whatever poor soul was the current subject of his 'experiments'. He'd cornered Philip this time, who was staring off into the distance, lost in his own thoughts, but Herman either didn't notice or didn't care.

Huntress walked up to Sally confidently, and hooked an arm around her waist. 

The entity pulled back it's thorned tendrils from the door, revealing a dilapidated old stone building in the distance.  
Herman slapped Philip on the back in a farewell gesture, snapping him out of his dissociative fugue with a start. Philip grunted in acknowledgement and gave Herman a little wave.

Herman walked up to the threshold, then paused, turning to look at Sally expectantly.  
Sally had worked with him for long enough that she could read his expressions despite the apparatus enclosing his face. She understood the almost imperceptible movement of muscles above his cheeks as him narrowing his eyes at Anna suspiciously.   
Sally felt Anna's arm curl around her waist a little tighter.  
His gaze moved from Sally to Anna to the exit gate leading through to the crumbling Crotus Prenn asylum, then back to Sally.

'Hmph.' Herman didn't say anything further, stepping through before Sally could indicate any kind of explanation or apology.

He'd have to tend to his research subjects himself tonight, alone.

The Entity closed that doorway, then opened anew to reveal a winding unpaved pathway lined with cedar and birch trees. Anna swept Sally inside.

Anna trotted along the silent forest path, and Sally followed close behind. Anna looked over her shoulder often, making sure Sally was still close by, face beaming with a wide smile, lips pursed together and hiding her teeth.

Soon they arrived at a grassy clearing, enclosed by a gateless fence that was little more than a knee-high perimeter of piled up rocks and sticks.  
In the centre was a large log cabin, surrounded by haphazard vegetable plots and sprays of herbs and flowers.

Anna casually took Sally by the arm and showed her around the garden. When she moved her hand to rub small circles around the underside of Sally's wrist with her thumb, Sally's cheeks burned.

She recognized some of the herbs for their medicinal uses, such as mustard for plasters, and sources of atropine, salyctic acid, and anxiolytics.

Anna lead her to a well and picked up a smooth round stone and pressed it into the palm of Sally's hand.  
Sally dropped it in the well, peering over the side. After several seconds it plinked, deep down in the blackness.

Near the front door of the house, Anna dug at a raised mound of soft soil with the handle of her hatchet. She pulled out a turnip, and clearly well pleased with her bounty, tucked it into the front pocket of Sally's apron.

It was getting dark now, so Anna took Sally by the hand and led her up to the front door. It was warm inside, and dimly lit by the remains of a log in the old style stove. Sally hadn't noticed until that moment how icy cold it was outside.

The house was sparsely furnished, with some cabinets, a dresser, kitchenette, and some stools, but no tables and chairs.

Pushed against one wall was a large bed; a solid handmade wooden frame with a mattress stuffed with straw. The stone floors were piled with animal skins and faded, filthy ornate rugs hung from the walls.

Sally sat on the edge of the bed gingerly. The blanket on top was made from hundreds of rabbit pelts, all stitched together. She ran her fingers over it. It was the softest thing she had ever felt.

Anna busied herself at the bench dedicated to food preparation; strings of garlic and battered metal implements hanging overhead.  
She unclipped the rabbit from her belt to dress it for cooking, effortlessly removing the skin as if it were a sock.

Anna moved over to Sally and leaned in, close enough to feel her breath. She felt her heart skip a beat, then Anna's face split into anothrr broad smile. She booped her forehead against Sally's, and plucked the turnip out of her apron. She continued preparing their dinner, leaving Sally with her hands by her sides, digging into the blanket.

-

Later that evening, Anna blew out the bear-fat candles and put a slow-burning log on the stove-fire. She removed her utility belt, unceremoniously dumping it on the floor, and wiggled out of her sarafan until she was wearing nothing but a long white shirt and her underwear.

She touched the zipper of Sally's dress at the back of her neck. Sally froze. Anna moved her hand away.

Anna stretched and yawned and climbed into the bed. Sally sat on the edge of the bed again, facing the fire with her back turned to Anna. She anxiously chewed at her lip under her hood, tapping one foot on the ground.

She listened to Anna's even breathing, and knew she was still awake, waiting. Sally pulled off her slippers, removed her apron, peeled off her gloves and stockings and carefully folded them up in a pile on the floor. She loosened the bandages at her throat, but left her dress on. She settled into the bed, tense, still facing the fire.  
Anna rolled over and pulled Sally into a bear hug from behind, and nuzzled her chin into the top of her head.   
Anna smelled like flowers she didn't recognize, and something spicy like nutmeg or cinnamon.  
The stinging, burning antiseptic smell that haunted Sally faded away. Despite herself, her anxieties melted away and she relaxed.  
In her girlfriend's arms, she could breathe.

-

Sally woke up slowly. The bed was still warm, but she could sense there was no heavy weight lying beside her.   
She opened her eyes to see Anna, sitting on a small stool with her back to the bed, by the fire.  
She had a pan filled with heated up well-water at her feet and was carefully washing her hair.

Sally was captivated. She stayed perfectly still, as if seeing a deer in the wild.  
Anna was naked from the waist-up, exposing her strong, broad shoulders crossed with old and new scars, and a few purple bruises left from the arena.  
Her powerful muscles moved smoothly under a layer of soft, touchable flesh, so unlike the hard, lean, sinewy lines of a killer like Phillip.

When she was done bathing, Anna emptied the pan into the well-bucket and refilled it with freshly warmed water from the pot on the fire. She stood up and carried the pan over to the bed, with a fresh washcloth draped over the side.  
She gave Sally another forehead-to-forehead kiss and continued singing to herself as she skipped outside and into the garden, slipping her arms back into her blouse as she went.

-

Sally sat on a wood stump, embroidering a simple kokoshnik as a gift for Anna, to hold back her long hair. Sally didn't know how to create traditional patterns, so she stitched a design of clusters of the tiny pale blue wildflowers that grew around the walls of the cabin.  
Anna stood nearby, practicing her hatchet throws.

Anna exclaimed in triumph and Sally looked up to see Anna's hatchets, perfectly lined up on their target, a wooden post some distance away.  
Sally clapped quietly, holding her hands close against her lap.  
Anna playfully flexed, showing off her biceps. She dropped her remaining axes and rushed over, picked Sally up, and spun her around. She booped their covered noses together before setting her back down again. Anna skipped away to gather up her hatchets, humming to herself, and Sally felt lightheaded and giddy.


	2. Momento mori

There was always much to do at the homestead, when their unseen master wasn’t calling on them to make their offerings.

Sally darned holes in their clothing while Anna scraped, salted and stretched rabbit pelts to make leather.

Sitting together by the fire, Anna would wash potatoes while Sally peeled them slowly and carefully with a small but very sharp knife.

They taught each other how to prepare herbal poultices to harm and to heal.

One evening, grinding rye berries to bake black bread, Anna flicked some water at Sally playfully.  
Sally threw some loose rosemary leaves at her in retaliation and Anna giggled.  
The smell of sulphur and iron flooded the room and black tendrils erupted from around the edges of the entrance to the cottage. They enveloped the door and then oozed away, revealing an entrance to a sacrificial arena. Anna sighed. She gave Sally a quick forehead-to forehead kiss then gathered up the hem of her sarafan and stood up. She tapped her chin thoughtfully, looking at an array of small objects on a shelf near the door. She selected a vial filled with murky liquid off the shelf, stuffed it into one of her utility pouches and skipped through the portal.  
The tendrils replaced the mundane wooden door, and Sally was left alone. 

She finished milling the flour, mixed it with a handful of dried fruit yeasts and water, kneaded the dough, and set it aside to rest.  
Still alone.

Sally stood up and looked about the cabin, letting her fingertips brush over the rugs on the walls. Beneath one of them, a thick rope ending in a large metal shackle was bolted to the wall at knee-height. There were messy Cyrillic characters scratched into the hard stone flooring in a circle as far as the rope could reach.

She drifted over to the tall cabinet shelves dominating the wall by the door.

The shelves were lightly packed with an assortment of curiosities.  
A jar with a pickled snake coiled around inside. A wooden bowl filled with dried amanita mushrooms. A tiny ceramic mortar and pestle for herbs. An old pistol with no bullets. A small folding pen knife.  
A chipped fancy china plate on a stand.  
A letter in an oil-paper parchment envelope.

Sally picked up the letter and examined it, turning it over in her long, slender fingers.  
The address was penned in a neat cursive script in a latin alphabet, which Sally quickly recognised as German.

She'd studied German in her youth, which had sometimes proven useful while working in the Asylum. But that was an eternity ago now.

After she'd been taken by The Entity, her English had improved substantially, as Evan and Herman's French was abysmal. Phillip was perfectly fluent, but he wasn't the talkative type, either. Frederick, who'd joined them recently, used too much American slang and talked about things she didn't understand.

The seal on the envelope was broken, so she carefully unfolded the letter and began to read. It was love letter from a German soldier to his sweetheart:

_  
My Dearest Tabitha,  
I hope this letter finds you well, and the sea air of my Uncle's house is doing good for your constitution._

_We are pressing deep into the territory now, the Russian empire is surely crumbling around us._

_There are only teenage boys and old women out here, my men simply have to make do, but all I can think of is you.  
The peasants speak some nonsense about a she-bear monster that kills men, and kidnaps all their little girls to keep as pets until they waste away._

_The peasants say they've had enough of this beast and are packing up and leaving. I wish I could join them, but we have a long march ahead of us further North._

_We're running low on rations, and the villagers aren't leaving much behind._

_I don't want to alarm you, but I must confess I'm scared. There is indeed something in these woods hungrier than an ordinary bear. I've seen things that can't be explained away as the work of war or wolves.  
The sooner we can leave this cursed forest the better._

_I dream of seeing your face again, to leave this hellish place. Knowing you're waiting for me on the other side gives me the strength to carry on._

_All my love,  
George._

Sally dispassionately folded the letter away and replaced it back to its original position.

-

Anna returned with a dejected huff. Sally cleaned the wound on her forearm and packed it styptic herbs, and wrapped it in a mustard-seed soaked bandage. Sally wondered if the Entity let the survivors become emboldened on purpose; let them escape a few times. Perhaps it sweetened their despair for later, when she arrived to crush it out of them like squeezing the pulpy juice from oranges.


	3. Trials

Sally sat on a stool by the door of the cabin, employing the light of the bright afternoon sunshine to mend a tear in her apron. She'd snagged it on a nail during a trial when a survivor had rudely blinded her with a flashlight, causing her to blunder into a wooden post. The temporary setback hadn't saved him.

She stole glimpses up at Anna while she worked, who was gathering up a basket of yellow wildflowers in silence. No singing or humming or laughter.

While she was focussing on her sewing, Anna slinked away.  
Overwhelmed with curiosity, Sally drifted over to where Anna had disappeared. She noticed a narrow, mossy pathway she hadn't seen before, leading down into the woods.

She hesitated by the start of the path until she heard a sad, mournful song that hitched in the singer's throat. One she doesn't recognize. So different from Anna's usual carefree melodies. 

Sally furtively crept along, staying hidden. The pathway lead to a small mossy clearing, ringed with wooden posts and a cairn of rocks in the centre.   
Placed proudly at the top of the cairn was a gigantic deer skull; bigger than Sally had ever seen.  
One of its antlers had been snapped off, and the aged bright white bone was speckled with green.  
Anna was arranging a crown of little yellow flowers on its head.  
Instead of names carved into them, the posts each had a child's toy tied to it with twine. Grave markers. Dozens of them.  
Sally crept back to the house silently.  
Grief is a lonely thing.

-

Evan was drenched in blood and practically glowing with fury. He'd fashioned a new mask for himself out of metal and antlers, but despite his ferocious appearance, tonight's survivors had gotten cocky.  
Two had already escaped the trial, and now only one remained. The fourth had mis-stepped while toying with him and lost their cat-and-mouse game. Much of the dead survivor was smeared across Evan's coveralls, but what was left was being picked at by the crows. He planned on taking it slow with the last one, when he caught them.

And he was going to catch them. He would be relentless.

The Entity opened a pathway to Huntress' realm, wordlessly beckoning to her. She stepped through the portal while Sally watched, pausing her needlework for a moment to observe and reflect on how Evan let his emotions get the better of him.

The portal began to shrink as the Entity's tendrils closed around the door, and Sally turned her attention back to her needlwork.

Inside the arena, The last survivor expertly slammed a pallet down on Evan's head, snapping off one of his antlers. It staggered him for a short second before he crashed through it blindly, smashing it with his boot and bellowing in inhuman rage.

Anna staggered away from him in horror, the sound of his anger stirring up mud she'd rather stay settled.  
Right before the portal was able to close, she dove back through it, into her own realm. The Entity's tentacles snaked after her, attempting to grab hold with sticky threads, but she went crashing out the small back door of the cabin and into the night.

Stunned and confused, Sally could feel agitation and disgust oozing from the tendrils surrounding the portal into the arena as they slowly drew closed again.

Just before it vanished completely she heard a panicked yelp and saw Evan lifting up someone by the throat.

-

Sally put down her things and floated out the back door, leaving it open.

She drifted through the forest, blinking around aimlessly, listening carefully for the sound of her little bear tearing through the forest.

Eventually she found Ana, hugging her knees and trembling at the bottom of an embankment by a small, still stream. 

Anna was substantially taller than Sally, and much, much heavier. Anna let herself be hoisted her up onto Sally's shoulder, limp with sad resignation.  
Sally made a series of excruciatingly rapid blinks back toward the gentle glow of the cabin, wheezing heavily with tje effort, lungs burning.  
Once they made it inside, Anna slipped down onto the floor and resumed hugging her knees, staring vacantly into the fire.

She'd stopped trembling, but occasionally a convulsive shiver ran through her like an electric shock.  
Sally gently picked out the twigs, leaves and brambles from her hair. Careful, methodical, and far less quick and brusque than she had ever been with any patient. She brushed Anna's hair, using any excuse to run her fingertips through it, and slowly Anna begun to relax into the touch, shoulders drooping.  
Sally braided Anna's hair tightly, close to scalp.

When she was done, Anna turned, looked at her and smiled in a gesture that said _I'm back._

Sally rose to dish up a bowl of stew from the cauldron on the stove. Anna moved to help, but Sally shushed her into submission and wrapped the rabbit skin blanket around her shoulders.

Anna sipped the hot stew from the tin canteen-bowl that must have belonged to a soldier once, carrying it to her lips with a hand-carved wooden spoon.

When she was done, she set her empty bowl down on the floor, hands pressed into the ground. Sally watched with loving patience as Anna seemed to be mustering the courage for...something.

Anna jabbed a thumb at her chest, then made a sweeping motion downward over her belly, then a cradling motion.

_My...Mother._

She jabbed her thumb against her chest, then made a hatchet throwing motion.

_My mother taught me to hunt._

She rubbed her arms and shivered, then clutched her belly.

_We were cold and starving._

She let out a wracking sigh, almost a sob. She slammed a fist into her palm decisively.

She held up her hands by her head, spread out like antlers, then made a creeping walking motion with her fingers. Then shook her head and waved her hands.

_Desperate, we hunt elk. But elk are very dangerous._

She wiggled her hands above her head again, then waved her hands in front of her with closed fists and made a fearsome bellowing noise, much like the one Evan had made.

She made the same sign for 'mother' then waved an arm behind her, as if pushing something away, then gestured as if she were holding an axe in front of her, puffing out her chest bravely.

_The elk charged at us. She stood in front of me to protect me._

She splayed a hand out like antlers in front of her, with her thumb resting against her heart. She thrust it up and out in a jerky motion as if it were bursting from her chest, while making a hacking gesture with her other hand.

She slowly stopped hacking and slumped forward. 

_She saved me._

She waved behind her, as if beckoning someone to come forward, then made the gesture for cradling a baby in her arms, and started humming a lullaby.

_...and sang to me as she died._

Sally watched in silence, hands clasped in her lap, as heavy tears rolled down Anna's cheeks.

The logs in the stove popped and settled.

Sally got up and moved behind Ana, lifting up the rabbit skin blanket up and wrapping it around them both. She slipped her arms around Anna's waist and nestled her head into Anna's shoulder, and breathily whispered the words to _'au clair de la lune'_ as best she could through her torn up throat.


	4. Epilogue

The Entity revealed the way, summoning her with inaudible whispers, commands sent straight into her brain.  
Sally floated into the filthy hospital reception area.

The portal stayed open.

She looked over her shoulder. Anna stood at the threshold with uncharacteristic apprehension.

She heard Herman's delighted sadistic giggling in another room, and the roar of a chainsaw in the distance. Another free-for-all arena with all the killers together, rooting out survivors like ferrets in a rat warren.

Suddenly Anna's whole demeanor changed, and she hunched forward and turned down the hospital hall, moving at a quiet run, the tails of her sarafan trailing behind her.

-

Sally had just slammed a survivor down with a sickening wet crunch onto a hook when Anna came gliding down the basement stairs with her own prey.

She smiled and giggled coyly at Sally then huffed as she hoisted her own survivor onto a hook heavily, letting gravity do the work.

She moved behind Sally and enveloped her in her strong arms, resting her chin on the top of Sally’s head.  
The young men kicked and shrieked like rabbits. But there was no mercy for them. No quick dispatch. They deserved to suffer.  
They all deserved to suffer.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this please drop a comment! I need validation to live and it encourages me to write more!


End file.
